Monday, May 07, 2007
Building wealth in inner-city neighborhoods is a tricky business. Despite billions of dollars of federal subsidies, many efforts have failed. There are, however, promising approaches that deserve to be expanded. Providing entrepreneurship training to inner-city youth is a good example.
Pioneered by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, this approach stresses the importance of developing skills in building businesses. You can learn more about NFTE from their web site.
Last week, the newspaper in Cleveland profiled E-City, the NFTE affiliate in that city. You can read more here. You can visit the E City web site here. If you are interested in listening to a podcast from the executive in charge of E-City, you can listen from this page.
(This story is a good, small example of the power of weblogs. E-City has largely been neglected by the main line press in Cleveland. A citizen web site, Meet the Bloggers, interviewed the founder of E-City. Within a month, the Cleveland Plain Dealer followed with its profile.)
posted by Ed Morrison |
links
Some Background on EDPro Weblog
The purpose of this weblog is to help economic development professionals -- EDPros -- keep up with the changes sweeping our profession. Strap on your goggles. It's a whole new game. There are no experts any more. The only place to learn about economic development is from other EDPros who are doing it.
One other point: the prevaling approach (paradigm, if you like) in economic development is shifting from competition to collaboration. There are a lot of reaasons underlying this shift, but here's the important insight: You, your community, and your region will do better by collaborating and sharing information.
If you are using a news reader, here is the link to syndicate this site:
Here's the link if you are a bloglines subscriber:
Speaking and workshops on Open Source Economic Development
As the idea of Open Source Economic Development starts spreading, more people are asking about it. Visit the I-Open web site to learn more. My colleagues and I are happy to explain the basic concepts in a talk or a workshop. E-mail Susan Alshuler if you'd like to learn more about workshops and speaking.
Background on Ed Morrison
Download some background information on me here.
Teaching inner-city entrepreneurship
